Coach Coyle: The Bye Comes At A Good Time

Coach Kevin Coyle discusses the state of the Dolphins defense after the first five games of the 2013 season. Make sure to listen for Coyle's comments on the play of several reserves who have played well in the absence of several injured starters on the unit.

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(On how the linebackers who had to fill in for injured players did on Sunday) – “I thought they did a solid job overall. As you go throughout the season in this league, there are going to be games like that where guys are either banged up going into it or someone is nicked up during the course of the game and guys has to step up. We are fortunate me have some veteran guys like (Jason) Trusnik and now that we’ve brought (Austin) Spitler back with us that can get in the game and do more than hold their own and do a good job. I thought they did a good job yesterday. Freeny did a good job on the snaps that he was in there. We had planned to use Jelani (Jenkins) during the course of the game regardless of injury. He’s been practicing really well. We think he’s a guy who is going to be able to see more time as the season progresses. We didn’t want to have to do it because of injury, but yet that was in the original plan.”

(On the effect of Cam Wake’s absence the past two weeks) – “I honestly don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that in the sense I’m more concerned about the guys that are in the game and the guys that we have to put out there and prepare them to play. Cam has a history of making impact plays, whether it be sacks, sack fumbles, collapsing the pocket. I think he gives people problems in terms of how they try to protect against him because of his unique speed and combination of power and speed. But I think the guys that have been in there have really picked up the slack. We’ve gotten a lot of good play out of Derrick Shelby. I think (Olivier Vernon) had another solid game. Dion (Jordan) stepped up and had some impact plays in the game yesterday. He helped cause the initial sack right before the end of the first half when he pushed the pocket and flushed (Joe) Flacco back out to (Vernon) on the one (sack). Then he hit the ball on the interception for the touchdown. He almost had a pick himself on a screen play. He’s showing awareness and things we are really happy to see out there on the field. All of those guys are picking up the slack the best they can. Koa Misi had some good rushes in there. But certainly Cam is a special player. The sooner we can get him back in the lineup, the better.”

(On Dion Jordan and if he is not ready for additional snaps) –“We put the guys in the best positions we think we can to stop what the opponent is doing. Yesterday if you notice that they were nicked up too coming into the game in terms of their receiving corps. They ran a lot of two tight ends. Sometimes an extra tackle was in the game running the ball. So we went with our bigger people at times to defend the run. I thought it was fairly effective for us doing it that way. That’s kind of why some of Dion’s snaps, he wasn’t in some of those packages. We plan on utilizing him more as we continue to progress throughout the season.”

(On having Brent Grimes shadow Torrey Smith in Sunday’s game) – “Good observation on your part. He didn’t do it all the time. He did it on certain coverage’s and certain situations. We just know he’s got a lot of natural coverage ability. He makes plays on the ball. We were anticipating because their receiving corps was again a little short. We wanted to get the best matchups in certain situations that way. There were coverage’s where we wanted to get him matched up against him. There were other coverage’s where we had him going opposite of him. We’ll see how things go down the road, but he needs to keep making plays for us.”

(On if Brent Grimes is exclusive in covering one side) – “No, we are not at that point yet. He plays on both sides”

(On if the bye week gives the defense a get ‘whole’ again) – “I just mentioned to the players in the unit meeting I think coming into the Buffalo game I think the bye comes at a good time. Initially I wasn’t all excited myself at looking at it as early in the season as it is. Now seeing how we’ve gone up to this point, I think it’s a good thing. Having some guys nicked up, I mentioned to the players on defense I think we’ll be the healthiest we’ve been since opening game. I’m not sure how everybody’s status will be, but I know it will be better than yesterday and it will be better than we had in the last couple of weeks. We will have more guys available to play, and that should help us. Yes, I anticipate we will have a good crew ready for Buffalo.”

(On what he is most and least pleased with the defense so far this season) – “Well I don’t know. We are always looking to improve, and I don’t know if we’ve established how good we could be in certain areas at this point. We’ve been too inconsistent, too inconsistent verses the run and too inconsistent verses the pass. We’ve generated some more turnovers but not to the extent that we wanted to. We need more impact plays. We’ve gotten good pressure on the quarterback. If there is one thing that’s been fairly consistent most of the year, not just in terms of sacks, but we’ve hit the quarterback quite a bit. Even yesterday he was getting jostled around in there quite a bit especially early in the game. That’s been a positive. I thought our run defense, that team came in here saying they were going to run the ball. I think we did a pretty good job overall. I think (Ray) Rice was 2.7 yards a carry. His longest run of the day was seven yards, and I don’t think he’s had a game where he’s had over 20 carries like that, he had 27 carries yesterday, where he’s ever had a game where he has had his longest gain of seven yards. We did some good things that way. I think we started to kind of re-establish that. We gave up a long run, which was really disappointing, and we gave up a quarterback scramble on a critical third down play, which added to their rushing statistics. We’ve got to improve in a lot of areas, and that’s what we just talked about as a group, and those guys are going to work at it. We are as coaches, and I think we’ll come back stronger than we are right now.”

(On Will Davis’ status) – “Like I said, we make decisions on who’s going to be active based on factors involving special teams, factors involving certain packages we plan to use in a particular game. We are going to access that each and every week. I want to get Will up and running, and I want to see him out there competing. Hopefully that will be real soon. Nothing is etched in stone going into the bye week in terms of who’s going to be up. Hopefully we are going to see more of him as we go forward.”

(On stats from sites such as Pro Football Focus and if he uses those stats) – “To be honest with you, I don’t spend a lot of time looking at their numbers. Part of the reason I think that people don’t understand, I don’t know where they can have statistics and quantify these statistics without really knowing what the calls are or what a guy’s responsibility is. They are judging, I don’t know who does it to be quite honest with you, what a defensive tackle was supposed to do on a certain play or what he wasn’t supposed to do, or what coverage you were in when a guy gets beat or doesn’t get beat. If they weren’t sitting in the meeting room and knew what the call was, I think it is really hard to say with exact terms who’s doing what. We don’t spend a lot of time (on that). We grade the film real closely, and our opinion is really what counts.”

(On the two pass interference calls against Nolan Carroll and Brent Grimes) – “First thing is those calls didn’t win our lose the game for us, obviously. There are going to be calls during the course of the game that go for you and some that go against you. From my perspective, I thought both guys played with good technique. I was surprised that the flags came out, but sometimes that happens both ways. Sometimes you expect a flag and you don’t get it. Sometimes you get it when you don’t expect it. Certainly you can ask the league office to give you a clarification on it on what they saw and why, and usually they will give you a very valid answer for what they did. Sometimes they’ll tell you they made a mistake. Other times they will say they saw this and that, and that’s why they called it. Again, those plays hurt us in the opening drive. They took a little momentum away from us, but the game, we had many more opportunities as that game unfolded at the end to win the game, and we have to come up with those plays.”

(On if he feels any better when the league said they made a mistake on a call) – “No (laughs).”